Same Old Seles Wins in Style : U.S. Open: She advances with an easy victory over Gigi Fernandez.

Monica Seles, still promising to set the tennis world abuzz with her new attire, put off the fashion show to concentrate on reaching the U.S. Open semifinals Tuesday for the first time in her career.

She wore the same old outfit and had the same old strokes, and was the same young grunter knocking down the older folks.

The victim this time was Gigi Fernandez, only 27 but still a full decade older than Seles, who barely broke a sweat in winning 6-1, 6-2 in 53 minutes of tedious tennis.

Seles, who won the Australian Open this year and her second straight French Open, is trying to add the U.S. Open to her Grand Slam achievements. Last year, she lost in the third round here, and in 1989 she lost in the fourth round.

Fernandez, a cousin of movie actor Jose Ferrer, didn’t act much like a serious threat on the court as she sprayed 36 unforced errors in her first match against Seles, who made only 10 errors.

Seles started as if she were out to break the record for fastest match of the tournament, winning the first four games in 12 minutes while not dropping a point on serve against a player appearing in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.

“I don’t think that I was so much nervous or impressed by the event as much as by her game,” Fernandez said. “She came out really strong and she was jumping all over my serve and serving really well.

“She is always fighting and thinking. She is a very smart player, very tenacious, and keeps coming at you. If you look at her, you don’t think she is a tennis player. She is not built like a tennis player, but her mind just keeps her in there.”

Seles agreed totally with that assessment.

“I think all the great players have that,” she said. “I mean, Chris, Martina, also Jimmy Connors, Mac, everybody. I think you have to have that. I mean you can’t be a dead person on the court.

“Like yesterday, Connors down 5-2, a lot of players would have just given up, forget it, hey, 5-2. Connors, he fights down even to the last points. I think these are challenges, that is why they are so good.”

A brief lapse in the fifth game, and a sudden spate of alert, aggressive net play by Fernandez, led to a break of Seles’ service at 15-40.

But Fernandez still couldn’t cope with Seles’ deep returns of service, and Seles came back to close out the set at love with a forehand crosscourt that Fernandez couldn’t reach.

Fernandez finally held to start the second set, then held again after five deuces in the third game to make it 2-1. Seles ran into a little resistance with three break points in the fourth game, but pulled out the game and cruised through the next three games while dropping only four points.

Serving for the match, Seles again faced a break point but was saved by still another Fernandez mistake, an easy backhand return into the net. Fernandez saved two match points but succumbed on the third with a backhand that caught the net cord and bounced back.

“When she hits the ball with both hands, it is hard to read,” Fernandez said. “When she is climbing all over your balls, and you don’t know which way it is going to be, she is going to get a lot of winners. She hits the ball hard, not outrageously hard, but up there. Not as hard as Jennifer (Capriati), but pretty hard.”

Seles was content to stay back as usual and slug groundstrokes, not even trying to practice a net game.

“If she could come in and put a volley away, nobody could beat her,” Fernandez said. “She hits the ball so early and so deep. If she had a volley, it would be scary.”